Talk:Civil law

Quotes in regards to the Civil Law:

"If we search out the origins of Roman Law, we must study Babylon..." Sir Frederic Pollack and Frederic William Maitland, The History of the English Law Before the Time of Edward I, page 561, Cambridge Univ. Press 1968.

"The King of Babylon [Nimrod] built a bridge across the Euphrates River and gave himself the title of the great bridge builder. The title was transferred, centuries later, to a king of Asia minor [Attalus of Pergamos], was taken by the Caesars, and finally fell to the popes who boast in it today, Pontifex Maximus." Donald Grey Barnhouse, The Invisible War, page 194,Zondervan 1965.

"In the civil law world, the movement toward the extremes of the inquisitorial model was impelled by the revival of Roman Law. The influence of canonic procedure, and, most important, the rise of statism...the prince as the personification of the state had the power to punish and pardon unrestricted by rules..." John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition, 2nd Ed. 1985.

"The pry bar of Roman Law found its fulcrum on the hill of the Vatican." Donald Grey Barnhouse, The Invisible War, page 239-240, Zondervan 1965.

"The study of canon law came to be joined with the study of civil law in the Italian Universities and a degree conferred on a student who had completed a full course of study was Juris Utri que Doctor or Doctor of Both Laws, referring to the civil law and the canon law (the J.U.D. is still granted in some universities in the civil law world). Because the two were studied together in the Italian Universities, there was a tendency for them to influence each other...this Roman civil law-canon law jus commune was the generally applicable law of Europe." John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition, 2nd Ed. 1985.

"Civil law stems from Babylon and is inquisitorial, encouraging and requiring the state's violation of one's freedom of conscience. This ever-present trait arises from the Babylonian system's dependence upon the priest's judicial power to examine its subjects in the Babylonian deity's name. In theory, the Babylonian deity, using various names worldwide and personified in the state or its demagogue, invested his priests with the power to examine the consciences of devotees by whatever means necessary, granting absolution or condemnation according to their imperious pleasure. By entrusting themselves to a totalitarian state, the Babylonian settlers established statism." Brent Allan Winters, Excellence of the Common Law, Compared and Contrasted with Civil Law in Light of History, Nature and Scripture, Page 63, 2008.

"The XII Tables' chief provision stated that whatever the majority vote of the people ordained in the last instance is the law; by this provision, the people deemed their simple majority to be sovereign: the voice from which no appeal was allowed. The Roman people, therefore, replaced their Babylonian gods with a majority of their number. Moreover, since the majority's voice was the equivalent to supreme deity, the majority faction became, in effect, Rome's god, able to get its cravings without fear of the minority's appeal to any higher power. Any who were willing, the majority allowed to join their number and enjoy the spoils of the majority's goals: state favor and government largess through plunder of the minority. In time, the leaven of majority rule, unlimited by law and individual rights, played itself out in inevitable anarchy and confusion, moving the now bewildered and anxious Romans to pine for and receive an all-powerful imperator to commandeer them and bring stability, albeit only if temporary." Brent Allan Winters, Excellence of the Common Law, Compared and Contrasted with Civil Law in Light of History, Nature and Scripture, Page 107-108, 2008.

"Civil law, therefore, is an urban law tailored to a particular city (Rome), held forth to be the incarnation of the timeless principles of reason, and all that is needed to judge man's behavior at all times and in all places. Pope Gregory VII's claim to rule the world from Rome was in furtherance of his attempt to imitate Rome's emperors. Rome was a city that ruled her empire from Rome, by Romans. Roman was not even a country that ruled an empire, such as did England in ruling the British Empire. Suckled on Babylonian religion, the civil-law tradition matured in Roman power, where emperors executed Rome's will by sheer might - not always because she was right. Cities have been largely cultures of consumption or raw materials; rural areas, on the other hand, have been largely cultures of production or raw materials. Herein lies an observation from the scattering that occured at Babylon: in the false religion of human will, Babylon conceived civil law and government, which then became the law of the city of Rome, was compiled as Justinian's Code, and is now received as the law of many nations." Brent Allan Winters, Excellence of the Common Law, Compared and Contrasted with Civil Law in Light of History, Nature and Scripture, Page 141, 2008.Liberty farms iowa (talk) 16:08, 9 February 2014 (MST)

I don't necessarily agree with Mr. Clark's opinions, but he does make a some good points:Liberty farms iowa (talk) 18:16, 9 February 2014 (MST)

J. Reuben Clark, Stand Fast By Our Constitution: "As of the time of the writing of the Constitution, there were two great systems of law in the world — the Civil Law. . . . and the Common Law. . . . [p. 138]. . . the basic concept of these two systems was as opposite as the poles — in the Civil Law the source of all law is the personal ruler; . . . he [the ruler] is sovereign. In the Common Law, . . . the source of all law is the people; they, as a whole, are sovereign. During the centuries, these two systems have had an almost deadly rivalry for the control of society, the Civil Law and its fundamental concepts being the instrument through which ambitious men of genius and selfishness have set up and maintained despotisms; the Common Law, with its basic principles, being the instrument through which men of equal genius, but with the love of mankind burning in their souls, have established and preserved liberty and free institutions. . . The Civil Law was developed by Rome. . . . [p. 139] The people under this system have those rights, powers, and privileges, and those only which the sovereign considers are for their good or for his advantage. He adds or takes away as suits his royal pleasure. All the residuum of power is in the Emperor. Under this system, the people look into the law to see what they may do. They may only do what the Emperor has declared they may do. . . . Under our common law system, we look into the law to see what we may not do, for we may do everything we are not forbidden to do. This civil law concept explains why, over the centuries, it has been possible for the head of a state, operating under this concept, to establish with comparative ease a dictatorship. We must always remember that despotism and tyranny, with all their attendant tragedies to the people, as in Russia today, come to nations because one man, or a small group of men, seize and exercise by themselves the three great divisions of government—the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. . . . When the [Civil Law] concept has been operative, [peoples] have suffered the resulting tragedies—[such as] loss of liberty, oppression, great poverty among the masses, insecurity, [and] wanton disregard of human life. . . . [pp. 144–45]"Liberty farms iowa (talk) 18:16, 9 February 2014 (MST)